Coffee or Tea, Anyone? Both?......

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:          Coffee or Tea, Anyone?  Both?......

For the record, I once participated in an "International BORE OFF" with a chap who was reputed to be the most tedious and boring of humans anywhere on the planet.  However, I won, and walked off with the trophy held high!!  What an accomplishment!

I think the contest may have been rigged!  

In any case, as a Geezer in Full command of my faculties, sort of,  and in the full flight of GeezerHood generally, I'd like to present to my beloved and faithful readers a new presentation about the wonders and glories of COFFEE and TEA consumption, and the marvelous venues that serve the finest of those concoctions (or are they confections?) 

Some people, we're told, do not care for coffee, and some prefer "mud" over tea, we're told...  reliably, sometimes!  (I have a friend who prefers hot tea to coffee.  Very strange!)

(Both coffee and tea, by the by, contain nutrients and antioxidants!  Both help protect the body against cell damage.  Do we need more reasons to drink the stuff??!!  One should think not!!  Oh yeah, and Vitamin B2...!)

SweetHeart and I do not start our day without a trip to a favored coffee house.  Wait!!!  Don't leave yet...  I'm not finished!  She prefers decaffeinated coffee with a modicum of hot water at its base.  I, on the other had, prefer a puddle or a quarter slurp of caffeinated, dark roast coffee with the balance filled with the purveyor's finest decaffeinated blend!  Oh, and did I mention the superb aroma of fine coffee??!!

Whilst positioned at said coffee house -- lately, Stone Creek's Harwood Avenue location; sometimes Downer Avenue -- we tend to haul out our electronic telecommunications devices, explore certain puzzling challenges and commence attempting to solve said puzzles!  E.g.   Wordle, Connections, Mini-Crossword challenges.  We generally succeed in conquering said challenges!  I mean, what fun, what joyful pastimes for those of us still in control of our brainwaves and sentient powers!  (Before they fade?...)

This morning, I'd like to add, in case anyone is wondering, or curious or perhaps already stupefied, we repaired both to Stone Creek and to Colectivo, the Oakland Avenue location.  (We enjoy interacting commercially and personally with Frank at the latter locale...)  Sometimes a second cup of mud is necessary, or at least greatly desired and

appreciated.  Sometimes iced coffee is a nice treat, particularly in the warm and sunny days, or, put another way, the blazing moments of summer!  Wouldn't you agree??

In the afternoon, we tend to prefer, not hot tea, but ICED SPORT TEA -- light ice and a slice of fresh lemon, if you please...   A large of cup of ice to take away with us, also please, as often the light ice is insufficient, 

Could be an image of a fabled coffee house
on Capitol Hill in Seattle, Washington!
Once thought to be the American
birth place of popular coffee houses!

 (not sufficient), and we prefer more tea than ice, you see....  One needs to re-ice the tea lest it warms too quickly!  We are nothing if not astute, possibly even quite brilliant,  about maximizing our quantities of tea.  If one does not specify "Light Ice," one might enjoy a few brief sips and nothing accosts one's nose but large and uncomfortable cubes of ice destined to freeze the proboscis!  Resulting in very little actual TEA!

There are highly important lessons to be learned here!!

But let us now return to the crux of this writing, or posting, if you prefer.  Coffee in the AM, Sport Tea in the PM!  Pay Attention!!  

Could be the Foundry...  Our 
favorite among certain
of them!  

   When during my wandering         days, I landed in the Seattle-    Tacoma region of the western     states, and discovered Capitol Hill  (high atop Seattle) and the many     fine coffee houses situated

 thereupon; thus I fell a bit     mesmerized and thus found myself amorously captivated by     and enthralled with the glories of truly good coffee.  A discovery most delightful and profoundly delicious!
Thus my eternal fondness for fine coffee began in earnest!!  

I don't think I have anything more to report...  The aim, here, is merely to extoll the virtues of great potables such as coffee and iced sport tea (Maybe hot tea as well...  Black, Green, etc.).  And to share with all and sundry the pleasures of both beverages, just in case some of my devotees might be seeking pastimes and potables yet undiscovered.  Thank you, and happy imbibing...  Oh, this has nothing to do with and is in no way intended to steer my beloved devotees to spirited or intoxicating beverages.  Thank you!  (Did I say that already?)

Humbly Submitted in August of 2025 -- by Joel K.

 

 

The Simple Joys of GeezerHood!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:              ...The Simple Joys of GeezerHood!

It's like trying to grab hold of the spark of a sun crystal tossed from the white crest of a breaking wave...  Dazzlingly bright, elusive, slippery!  Akin to a dreamy concept of Retirement!...   Seemingly unattainable, at least at present.  Semi-retirement is, perhaps, a more plausible aim, however, and we cling to its pretense in various forms, cheerfully if, at times, a bit delusionally optimistic.

When free of workday hours, or from caregiving or the joys of being with children and grandchildren, we seize, for example, a certain delightful "Tea Time."  Heading for a favorite coffee house, we order Sport Tea, the extra large variety, with lemon and a quantity of ice that doesn't over-

whelm the tea.  Adding a bit of natural sugar, we seek the waters of Lake Michigan, or those of the confluence of rivers just west of the the huge arcing bridge that aims itself south, or north, depending on one's desired trajectory.

In summer, primarily owing to their greater occupancy (but in fall and winter as well!), we love watching big ships plowing the waters of the Great Lake, or tug boats,

sometimes the ferry.  We tend to sit and relax and sip that delicious sweet tea, equally savoring the scene in front of us, the waves and the palette of ever-shifting colors painted by the sun and the skies.

Among the most enjoyable sights are the St. Mary's Conquest or Challenger, cement-carrying ships that sometimes emerge like giant grey apparitions beside the Breakwater Light.  They inch with agonizingly deliberate slowness into the confluence, turning left as does the Menomonee River, heading for the river-front factory and its dispensing trough.  When filled to capacity, the ships back out of the narrow river, turn past the Light, pivot forward and then cruise to their (mysterious) destination ports on the Great Lakes.  

Wonderful sights.  Beautiful to witness for those of us so inclined and interested.  We're not always alone.  There are others of our ilk who enjoy the spectacle, not always of the GeezerHood variety.  The young are also sometimes in evidence at the water's edge, their eyes following the slow, grey, nearly waveless progress of the ship, whichever is in port at the time of its sighting.

On at least one occasion, hoping to prolong the nautical adventure before us, we hurry to "The Point," park our vehicle facing the Lake Front, and follow the ship's more urgent exit journey as it plows northward or eastward to deliver its viscous cargo, like exceptionally thick grey soup, too long left sitting and hardening in the pot.  Both ships have towering tugs attached like barnacles permanently to their sterns, guiding and steering the big ships into and out of our port with its narrow, meandering waterways.  

At other times, tide and time permitting, we take ourselves in a northerly, followed by a westerly direction to the banks of the river named after our state's largest city.  Prior to landing ourselves at the river's edge, we stop for our golden tea at a suburban oasis serving the same sought-after potions as those of  locations in the City we call home.  

(To be fair, truthful and accurate, we favor two different coffee houses, one for our preferred

This Aint Us!

coffee beverages, the other exclusively serving the sport tea of which we're so fond!)

The River and the park location we discovered a few years back gives us a very different set of spectacles.  An Osprey family that nests high atop a baseball field's "night-game light" --  a family we hope returns to its nest in Spring -- and bufflehead ducks, the black and white variety that dive into rivers and lakes for their dinner, geese and other species of duck, occasionally turtles and other amphibians.  And small furry woodland creatures and white-tail deer.  Nature and a natural setting at its most beautiful and gratifying. 

Such are the Simple Joys...   If we can't actually retire in the relatively near, or distant, future, we can in fact approximate a kind of semi-retirement, in which we can snatch a few restful hours with delicious tea, not necessarily "and sympathy" (if you get the reference!), but glorious nature and so many of its natural denizens, those native to our world and the specific biosphere we're privileged to inhabit. 

(Special Note of Attribution and Dedication:  For SweetHeart, my constant tea-savoring and much-loved partner, who, with me, so enjoys the ship sightings, the beasts, the waters and the flora, the natural settings we long to spy through our binoculars or naked eyes when we can in fact savor a semblance of leisure time, of "semi-retirement"... the Simple Joys of GeezerHood!)  

Humbly Submitted, 01-31-2022 -- by Joel K.